


Fix You

by SlaveToMyKeyboard



Series: Bubbleverse [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Coping with Death, Cuddles, Dream Bubbles, Everyone's just kind of chill, Feels, Fluff, Gen, Lots of Crying, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, There's not strict Quadrants really, but it's not sadstuck, lighthearted affection, pre-retcon timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6547753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlaveToMyKeyboard/pseuds/SlaveToMyKeyboard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dying isn't really how you thought it would be.</p><p>And... You think that's a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The next thing you remember is just… Darkness. Like you’re floating through a sea of night, but the moons and stars have been blotted out, leaving you all alone. Then everything’s red, and white, and you can’t breathe. You try to cry out but it’s like there’s sopor in your lungs, flooding your mouth as soon as you open it. You’re going to die, suffocate, alone and silent, and-

You’re not dying. You can’t breathe, but if you stop trying, it doesn’t hurt. The mottled colours shift in your vision, swirling and moving, like a sea of fire. You reach up, towards the, the surface of… Whatever this shit around you is. It feels thick, and for a second you think maybe you _are_ actually in sopor. But, sopor slime is green, and if you were breathing it in, you’d be dead, right? God, you’re finding it way too difficult to construct proper thoughts here, it just feels like, like you’re going in circles.

Wait, is that an actual circle above you? It looks red and… Darker red? Or is purple? Blue maybe? Fuck, why are you so fixated on figuring out what colour it is? You try to move closer, squinting to get a better look. Then it vanishes and you let out a muffled cry.

_No! Don’t go! Don’t leave me alone again._

Holy shit, you made a sound. It was barely anything, but it was there, somehow making it through all this viscous _slop_ that’s trying to be a sorry excuse for air. You kick your legs and somehow get upright, then another flail and you break the surface. You thought you would be coughing, spluttering and retching to clear your airways, but as soon as you breathe air, it’s like your lungs are magically empty. Your vision is still blurred, but now everything is in colour. You turn this way and that, looking for the colours, but all you see is, well, a sea. A sea of orange that bubbles and spits, and every preservation instinct screams for you to get the fuck out.

It all floods back to you like a tidal wave, as you scrabble for the nearest surface, hauling yourself out of, of out of the _lava_. You look down at your tattered clothes, the edges still glowing with burning embers, and most of your shirt stained bright red, bleeding out of the circles in your grey sign embroidered on it.

**_I’m_ ** _bleeding. That’s **my** blood._

You shake your head and look up. It doesn’t hurt, you can deal with that later. From the looks of things, you’ve made it onto some weird cliff face, or rock formation. So you do the only thing you can and climb, not looking down, or around, or anywhere except up at the lip that juts out against the dark sky. It feels like an eternity of pulling yourself up, but also like you reach it in no time, dragging yourself over and rolling onto your back. You take a deep breath, testing for pain in your chest. Nothing happens. You don’t even feel like you need to try again, but you do it anyway. Your vision clears somewhat, but the sky remains pitch black. Empty, like your think pan.

 _I’m forgetting something_.

You can’t figure out what, but there’s this huge, _gaping_ hole, where you know something poignant should be.

_Wait. Terezi?_

 You sit bolt upright.

**_Terezi!_ **

You look around but… Nobody’s there.

_She should be here! Right **here** , with Kanaya and- and Gamzee, oh **God** Gamzee._

Tears prickle your eyes and your chest seizes up, refusing to stop trying to crush itself until you give in and let out a sob. You ignore the way your tattered clothes catch on your skin as you wipe your eyes, biting on your lip to clamp your mouth shut, stop any more sounds from spilling out.

Nobody’s here.

You’re alone.

You’re…

You’re…

…

You stand up, remnants of lava hissing as it drips onto the floor. You want to crawl under a rock and just _burn_. But you can’t. You have to find out what’s happened here, be… Be a good leader.

A sliver of red flashes above you, mirrored by a streak of blue.

_The lights!_

You run to follow them, across the fallen tower and into the forest. You remember now. You were fighting The Empress, and another Serket was there, and so were the dogs and-

 _Something went wrong_.

You skid to a halt, watching the colours skit into the distance. Something went wrong in that fight. You were losing. All of you. Jade was under the Empress’ mind control, and so was that other fucking creepy human girl. Gamzee and Terezi were fighting and they, and he…

Oh God.

You sink to your knees, trembling all over.

_Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God_

“KK.”

_Sollux?_

He’s there, standing in front of you, eyes wide and… Half-dead. You want to say his name, but if you opened your mouth, the only thing to come out of it would be a wave of hysterical crying. Then more of your friends join him, brows furrowed above their blank eyes, and you have to cover your mouth to hold the sounds in.

_Eridan. Feferi._

“Hey, KK,” Seemingly the only one able to actually do anything other than stare, Sollux walks over to you, kneeling down so close you could touch him, “it’s okay.”

_He’s lost his lisp._

You’d almost forgotten about that, and for some horrible reason, it makes you want to laugh.

_I’ve gone insane. I’ve finally lost my pan._

Sollux looks behind him, and after a moment the sea-dwellers venture nearer, taking their places either side of him. Feferi’s already crying, her cheeks stained with faint lines of pink and her chest shaking as she breathes. Eridan’s trying to hold it together, but the look on his face, it’s like he’d shatter if you touched him. Then someone touches you, and you think you understand how that would feel. A sob jumps out of your throat, tears blurring your vision. Sollux squeezes your arm, edging closer as your eyes begin to stream a watery crimson.

“Kar-” Eridan chokes out your name, taking a sharp breath afterwards only to lose it to another strained cry.

You close your eyes before you see Sollux joining the pity party, but when he pulls you against his chest, you can hear it in his uneven breaths, feel it as he buries his face in your hair. You give up on trying to be strong.

“I, I’m dead, a-aren’t I?” You ask whilst you still can.

Sollux just holds you tighter, stroking your back as you wail into his shirt. A cold hand joins his, small and delicate, her fingers shaking as they dance across your spine. You wait for the other one, but it never comes.

_Does he hate me?_

You remember your last conversation with Eridan. You remember the way he looked the last time you saw him, angry and scared and helpless.

_No, he thinks I hate him._

He must feel so awful, seeing you here. You thrust your hand towards him, hoping it conveys to him the forgiveness that you can’t vocalise. Your palm remains empty for the longest seconds of your life, then you feel his icy fingertips brush against it, light and unsure, and you grab him before he can stop, locking your hand around his. He squeezes you back so tightly, like you’re going to disappear. Gods you hope you don’t.

Then Sollux lets you go, moving aside and whispering something, but before you can try to look at what’s happening, your face is pressed into someone else’s shirt, your forehead touching against a softer material and a pair of strong arms wrapped around you. Sollux keeps his contact with you too, stroking through your hair as Feferi continues to pat your back. They’re all colder than you, but you’ve never felt so warm.

“I’m s-so-sorry.” Eridan’s voice is a squeak, whispered into your hair between hiccups.

You wriggle closer to him, nuzzling into his scarf as you snivel and sniff in an effort to not start blubbering again.

“I-I, I f-forgive you.”

Well so much for the not crying plan.

“Hey, you found him!”

An oddly chipper voice chimes in over your combined gross sobbing, and you see a flit of red as you open your eyes and realise you should probably compose yourself. Just because you’re… Dead, it doesn’t mean you can go around forfeiting your dignity.

“Oh, he looks a little worse-for-wear don’t you think?” Aradia floats down and leans right up into your face, her eyes narrowed, then she moves back, “Isn’t realising you’re dead supposed to fix all of,” she gestures to your burnt clothes and soot-stained skin, “that?”

“ _AA_.” Sollux hisses.

She puts her hands on her hips, “What? It’s true.”

This moment, this awkward moment where Sollux and Aradia are arguing over your clothes, is when the hysterics decide to set in. You grin for literally _no fucking reason_ , and then begin to giggle in an equally unwarranted fashion.

“Uh, Karcrab?” Feferi tilts her head, brows furrowed with concern, “Are you okay?”

“No!” You chuckle, hiccupping as you wipe more tears from your face, “I just crawled out of fucking lava – my clothes are ruined, there’s soot everywhere, my hair is more of a disaster than usual – Feferi, Aradia’s right, I look like shit.”

“I didn’t say those words _exactly_ ,” Aradia says, “I put it in much nicer terms for you.”

“No, no, KK’s right.” Sollux puts a hand on your shoulder, looking you dead in the eyes – hah, dead, get it? Because you’re all dead! “You really do look like shit.” He cracks a smile with those messy fangs of his, “But I think we might be able to fix it.”

 _Fix it_.

Yeah. If anyone can ‘fix’ you, it’ll be these dweebs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some feels I had about the pre-retcon timeline, and I wanted to post something for 4/13. So have the first part of Karkat's road to feeling alive whilst he's as dead as a doornail.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up with a jolt. Everything’s dark. There’s something wrapped around you instead of sopor. You also can’t remember where you are and immediately try so sit up in a panic, only to get your limbs tangled in the fabric cocoon and fall to the floor with a thud. You were on a couch? Okay. That’s not unusual, sometimes you just didn’t make it to ‘coon before you fell asleep. Looking around from your new position gives no further answers though. The walls are all wooden, and there’s not a single window anywhere, what the fuck gives? Why can’t you remember anything? The more you think, the more you panic, your pusher hammering itself against the inside of your thorax, drumming all the way up into your horns. You don’t even notice how fast you’re breathing until you try to hold your breath at the sound of something moving in the dark, but after only a few seconds you have to gasp in more air.

_What’s happening? Where am I? Oh God._

The noise gets closer. You crawl backwards until your shoulders hit the sofa, then press yourself into the fabric as far as you can. The door opens and you shrink into a ball, not knowing why you’re scared but you have to be because something bad happened, and you’re not supposed to be here, and _why can’t you fucking remember!_

“Hey.” A voice. You recognise it, maybe? “Kar? Wwhat are you doin’?”

Yeah, that’s… You uncover your face and see wavy horns, violet hair. Thank God. Wait, he’s… he’s got white eyes, that means–

“What the matter?” Another familiar face enters the room.

She crouches down next to Eridan, both of their fins drooped with concern. You flinch when Feferi tries to touch you, and an apology makes a break for the surface. But when you open your mouth, all that comes out is a sound that doesn’t even count as a syllable. A pathetic squeak that etches worry deeper onto the sea dweller’s faces. White eyes. You remember now. You’re… You _died_. The anxiety floods out of your body, and your pusher all but stops beating. But your breathing stays shallow as tears prickle your eyes, painting warm lines down your cheeks.

“It’s alright,” Eridan says when you cover your face.

A hand settles on each shoulder, and you let them lead you as you’re pulled into a hug. They still smell the same, you realise. Soft and crisp, like opening a bottle of carbonated water, or after the first rain of a dim season. A deep inhale settles your breaths, and after a few more, the tears stop.

Part of you wants to squirm away, apologise for crying, go off and come back later so you can pretend it didn’t happen. But that part soon gives in, and you don’t try to struggle. Physical affection never really bothered you, it wasn’t something you craved or sometimes even wanted. Now though, you feel as if you’ll fall apart without someone holding you. After a while, you’re completely limp against them; head nestled on Feferi’s shoulder whilst Eridan practically has you in his lap. He gently traces lines up and down your arms, humming a tune you almost recognise. Feferi cards her fingers through your hair, joining in with the song on some parts. You haven’t felt this relaxed in so long. The vibrations in your chest don’t even register until theirs buzz to match it. Sea dweller purrs are higher, lack the bass yours puts out even when you’re not trying to be loud. There’s something soothing about it though, how they’re so similar to you but also so different.

You remember when you first heard Eridan purr. Watching a movie on the meteor, huddled up on the sofa in the middle of the day and struggling to stay awake so you could finish whatever flic was on. Your block smelt of burnt popcorn, and the copious amounts of syrup you’d used to try and disguise the taste. Both of you were almost asleep, leaning on each other with your blankets long discarded due to the Meteor’s sporadic and unreliable heating system. Eridan felt so cool against you, even through his ridiculous clothes – just to clarify, you’re talking about temperature here; he’d still be a dork even if you put him in a million boondollar tuxedo. He must have thought you were asleep, and sighed out the beginnings of a tiny purr. You didn’t sleep, but you’d managed to doze a little with the sound a relaxing constant under your ear, like Feferi’s is now.

Hang on is that… Burnt popcorn you can smell? You wrinkle your nose and sniff again. Yeah it is, and syrup.

“Karcrab?” Feferi nudges you gently, supporting your shoulders as you sit up and look around. “What is it?”

The walls are grey now, cold and metallic, and the couch has been replaced by a couple of chests that no doubt contain shitty weapons or someone else’s junk. It’s your block from the meteor.

“Ain’t this your block?” Eridan asks, and you’re thankful because it means you can just nod instead of having to muster words.

“Mmm, somefin smells great!” Feferi takes a deep sniff, then giggles. “Were you cooking in this memory Karkat?”

You give her a confused frown, unsure of what to say.

“You’re influencing the bubble.” It takes you a second to recognise Sollux’s voice without his lisp. Oh yeah, you forgot about that. “Must be a memory you were thinking pretty hard about.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” You mumble.

Sollux hums, but doesn’t say anything else. You look up at him, and he smiles down at you as he leans on Eridan’s shoulders – ignoring the way the sea dweller pouts at him. Feferi just laughs, one hand still gently gripping your shoulder. You never really spent that much time with her, not talking on Trollian or when she was alive on the meteor. But being like this, it makes you wish that you had. You can see why Eridan wanted her in a quadrant – not that you’re thinking like that though, you’ve had enough quadrant drama to last a lifetime. And by the looks of it, so have they, unless they’re in a giant pale four-way or some sort of four-leafed, ashen mess. Assuming Aradia is involved too, that is. Whatever, it’s not the time to think about that sort of thing.

“Oh!” Ah, speaking of Aradia. “This is the meteor lab, right?” She floats into the room, twisting this way and that to see what your memories conjured up.

You shrug. “Yeah, it’s my block, I guess, if you could even call those shitholes we used to crowd up with our junk liveable block spaces.”

Her grin is bordering on creepy, but you manage something resembling a smile. Wait, were her eyes always in colour? You feel your expression sink, eyes wide even though you will your face to _not_ resemble a hopbeast in headlights.

“You’re looking at my eyes, aren’t you?” Aradia asks, an almost sympathetic look on her face, “Well you got me, I’m not dead.” She says it so casually, hands held up in mock defeat.

Will you be like that about death one day? Able to joke about it without feeling as if you’re going to fall apart?

“I made my eyes white so I wouldn’t freak you out,” she continues, “but I guess it didn’t really help, you still look pretty shocked about all of this.”

She laughs a little after that, and you manage to conjure your half-smile again.

“It’s kinda hard not to be,” you admit.

You feel so small, like a freshly pupated wiggler thrown out of the brooding caverns, out into a new world that seems so vast, endless. Well, that’s partially true of your current situation, you guess. You’re a freshly dead ghost, thrust into the afterlife, and with thousands upon thousands of dream bubbles to explore.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” Sollux reaches down to pat your head, “looks like you’ve managed to fix your clothes already though.”

You look down. Oh. The tattered edges are gone, as are the blood stains on the front of your shirt. That’s good, right? It means you’re adjusting, or something?

“Good job Carpcatfish!” Feferi pats your back like you won an award.

“But I don’t know how,” you say, pulling at your mended sleeves.

“Not a lot of us do, it’s kind a subconscious.” Eridan finally shrugs Sollux off, leaning forwards to look over your shoulder.

At first, you panic at having someone so close. Then you remember that your blood doesn’t matter anymore – which is the strangest feeling in the world, never mind the fact that it’s because you’re a ghost – and you let yourself relax enough to glance sideways at him. At this distance, you can see just the faintest darker circle where his pupils would be, ringed in a vague, pale purple before turning white. You’re glad you can see this, because it lets you know when he decides to meet your gaze, and therefore when you need to look away and pretend you weren’t staring. Shit, wait… Have you got eyes like that too?

“Have any of you got a mirror?” You ask without really thinking, and Feferi hands you a mirror before you can decide if you really want to see or not.

It’s at just the right angle for your face to be out of view, so you hold it there. What good will seeing your eyes do? They’re just going to be white. Boring. Lifeless. All they’ll show you is how dead you are. _Prove_ how dead you are. Proof. That’s what you need to see. You’re not in denial, you know you died and you’re slowly beginning to accept it, but you still feel so, well, _alive_. You’re breathing, you have a pusherbeat, your skin prickles whenever a chill runs across it. That’s all normal. _You feel normal_. Except… You know that you’re not.

“Maybe you should wait for that?” Sollux reaches over, gently covering your hands with his where they grasp the mirror’s handle.

You shake your head, “I need to, need to see-” you cut off as the words catch in your throat.

Sollux waits a moment, then gives your hands a squeeze before letting go, “Okay.”

Okay. You can to do this.

_Deep breaths Karkat. It’s just a reflection. Everyone’s already seen what you look like. Stop being a big wiggler._

You still close your eyes as you tilt the mirror up. Then you hear a sigh and someone guides your arms up into the right place.

“There, you can look now.” Sollux tells you, his hand lingering just by your wrist.

You don’t shrug him off though, like usual. It feels nice, having someone there. Almost like you’re being grounded as you cautiously crack open an eye. A flash of white is all it takes; both of your eyes fly open and you find a pair of blank orbs staring back at you in the reflective pane. A gasp turns into a sob, and you cover your mouth as more try to spill out. You- you’re really… You distantly feel Sollux tightening his grip, and someone else’s fingers curling around your shoulder. But all you can do is stare as something like nausea coils in your gut. You look so… Different. Whilst also not. You can’t decide if it’s unsettling or reassuring, but both of those warrant ocular dismay fluid excretions apparently. Your eyes prickle as the ones in the mirror begin to spill pale crimson. Then another choked sob, and you feel hot tears drip onto your hand. Your reflection begins to shake, even with Sollux helping to steady your arm.

“KK?” He shuffles closer and manages to pry the mirror out of your grasp. “Hey, it’s alright.”

All you can do is look helplessly at him. Every time you blink all you see are those white eyes and it- it shouldn’t bother you, but it does, and the worst part is that you don’t even know _why_. You’re still crying as he pulls you close, pressing your face into his bony shoulder. He mutters things, about how everything’s okay, how he’s there for you – everyone is, how you can feel safe now, how you’re still you. Your breath hitches at that. Still you? Another wave of emotion squeezes at your throat, and yet again your squawk blister fails you when you try to speak.

“Sol’s right,” Eridan says, and you realise he’s the one kneading his claws into your arm, “nothin’s changed ‘cept the colour a your oculars. An’ besides, I thought you didn’t like your eyes? Wwhat wwith them turnin’ red one day and wwhatnot.”

“ _Eridan_ ,” Feferi scolds him, “you can’t say that.”

“Wwhy? It’s true.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just glub it to _everyone_.”

He scoffs, “Fef, there’s three of us here excludin’ Kar; ain’t exactly ‘evveryone’.”

“I think you mean _four_.” Shit, you swear Aradia had left. You look up as she floats down to settle herself between the sea dwellers, “And stop arguing you two, or do you want another visit to the get-along bubble?”

They roll their eyes, but go quiet. Wow, so Aradia’s like their Auspistice, huh? Strange, but it looks like it works. You guess they need it too; Feferi’s obviously still trying to be a Moirail, even though she was the one who broke it off in the first place.

“But Karkat, they are right, just watch.” Aradia looks straight at you, smiling as her eyes begin to grow pale, then fade to white completely. “See? I’m still me, just with a little less colour.” She giggles, not put off when all you do is gaze back blankly – shit, no pun intended.

Then she blinks and her eyes are back to normal. Well that was freaky. But… It kind of helped. You get what they’re saying. It’s just eye colour. The thought makes your chest seize up again. Everything you worried about, it was always just a colour. Why does it matter so much to you still? Yeah your blood is mutant red, so what? You’ve got white eyes now, _so what_? You’re a ghost. _None_ of it matters anymore. Oh God the _tears_ , why won’t they just _fucking STOP_. You’re not even sad anymore, for shit’s sake.

“Hey, hey, come on noww,” Eridan tries to comfort you, wrapping his arms around your thorax and squishing you tight to his chest, “it’s okay, Kar.”

Somehow, it is comforting, and you compose yourself enough to reach out and drag Sollux in too, because you _really_ need to be the filling of a cuddle sandwich right now. You’re expecting resistance, considering who it is you’re trying to force together – whoops, you should have thought about that. But you guess being a sprite did something to their pans, because neither of them show any hesitation in getting as close to each other as possible. Eridan purrs into your hair and Sollux echoes the sounds as he nuzzles at your neck, thumbs rubbing gentle circles over your shoulder blades.

You’re almost completely relaxed, when a giggle catches your attention. You open your eyes to find Aradia and Feferi watching you, arms around each other and with wide grins stretching their faces. You poke your tongue out at them, and they laugh again. Then something happens that feels strange and natural all at once. You smile. Not forced or from hysteria. Just because you want to. Because you can.

That’s right; you don’t have anything to worry about here. You smile wider and hold out your hand, beckoning the girls to join in. They take your offer gladly, and end up on either side of you, completing your little circle of familiarity and comfort.

This isn’t really what you thought dying would be like, but that’s a good thing.

You sigh and feel your pusher stop. But it’s okay. You’re here and you’re not alone. That’s all that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand part two! Finally. I apologise for the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! I might do more set in this universe, but for now I'm going to leave it with a happy partial GO crew.
> 
> I hope you all have a lovely day or night, my dear reader ~


End file.
